Here’s this week’s digital first news for the week ending 10/26/12. This update on digital, social and mobile includes a discussion on The Boston Globe’s dual website strategy See this and more in this week’s update.

Thanks to Smartphones, We’re Now in the Golden Age of Reading If you tune in at all to the near-constant chatter about the precarious state of quality journalism, you’ve probably heard that the digital revolution is largely to blame for quality journalism’s decline—that publishers beholden to smartphones and social networks are guilty of rewarding consumers with short attention spans, and that, as a result, those attention spans continue to shrink.

How Three News Organizations Are Optimizing Their Digital Content It’s no secret that newspapers and online-only news organizations are dedicating more and more resources to their websites and other digital products. At the same time, publishers are cutting back on print editions, and it looks like this trend will only expand over time.

Paywalls Help Push Gannett Q3 Circ Rev Up Gannett Co. today reported third quarter results that included a 5.6% rise in circulation revenue, due primarily to the rollout of the company’s new subscription model.

The incredible shrinking newspaper audience While Boomers still turn to printed papers for their news, subsequent generations do not, and are unlikely to forsake their mobile devices and computers in order to do so. Thus, newspaper publishers should prepare to woo younger generations in order to survive in the near future.

Publishers Confront Mobile Mess We are now fully ensconced in the Mobile Era. Publishers are scrambling to figure out not only how to present content on portable devices but also how to close the revenue gap between desktop and mobile.

Number of Americans Who Read Print Newspapers Continues Decline While Americans enjoy reading as much as ever – 51% say they enjoy reading a lot, little changed over the past two decades – a declining proportion gets news or reads other material on paper on a typical day. Many readers are now shifting to digital platforms to read the papers.

The Boston Globe’s dual website strategy The Boston Globe has an interesting approach to the paywall debate: the newspaper has two websites—one free and one subscription-based. Boston.com has been free for 16 years, while premium site bostonglobe.com, at $14.50 per month, is geared toward the print readership.

Papers Should Tap Built-In Paying Audience The biggest change has been the widespread embrace of metered access, which is not a paywall. Meters offer a kinder, gentler approach that leaves casual users alone and targets heavy users for subscription signup pitches.

Newsweek to End Print Edition After 79 years chronicling American life, Newsweek magazine will publish its last print edition at the end of December and become digital-only.

Chicago Tribune to Online Readers: Pay Up The Chicago Tribune said Thursday that it will erect a paywall on its website next month joining the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times with online subscription plans.

There Is No Business Model For Killing Print When you see Newsweek packing it in, or a newspaper like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer killing its print component, it’s not a victory of digital success over dead-tree failure. It’s a symptom of a broader problem with the publication’s business.

40% Of Tab Users Read Digital Papers, Mags Nearly 40% of U.S. tablet owners read a newspaper or magazine on the device during a three-month period ending in August, according to new data from comScore’s TabLens service.